


Frozen Hollow

by TheGreatLibraryFangirl (Mazeem)



Series: Gaps in Canon [5]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Guilt, Muslim Character, Sad, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27166582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazeem/pseuds/TheGreatLibraryFangirl
Summary: Set during Ash and Quill. Khalila/Dario hurt/comfort.Khalila struggles with her emotions on the ship as they travel from North America to England. Her family is in grave danger, and everything feels like it's her fault.
Relationships: Dario Santiago/Khalila Seif
Series: Gaps in Canon [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1318670
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Frozen Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter Nine, Ash and Quill
> 
> "The journey hadn't done well for [Khalila], either; she had a hungry, hollow look to her just now, and as Dario sank down beside her and took her hand, Jess was glad she had someone who cared so much. They'd had no word of her father, brother or uncle, except that they were still in the Archivist's prison inside the Serapeum. 
> 
> [...] Khalila was bearing her weight of fear and grief alone, and they all could see the strain of it on her face."

> **A note from the pen of Scholar Khalila Seif, en route to England**
> 
> _If only Thomas had never made that thing!_

She looked at the words, squinting as if they weren't in her own handwriting, fresh from her pen. 

But they were.

A knock on the door jolted her attention away from the poison on the scrap of canvas. She stayed silent, but the door handle turned anyway.

Her stomach did a complicated series of acrobatics at the sight of Dario, looking dashing as ever even in sea-stained clothing. Part of her was desperate to snuggle up to him and be comforted by his presence. Another part of her, newly awakened by the horror that she had just spewed out into permanence, believed that she didn't deserve that. Most of her mind knew that it didn't matter what she did. Hug or no hug, her family would remain imprisoned.

"I brought you something to eat." He held up something. Some food item. Irrelevant.

"Thank you. I'll eat in a while." She couldn't quite bring herself to lie to him, but she regretted not doing so when his brow furrowed.

"Have you eaten today?"

She narrowly resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Clearly he knew the answer to that question. "I don't feel like eating."

To her dismay, Dario came fully into the room and sat down on Glain's bed. It was a small room. Their knees were almost touching, and she could see where he had missed a bit while shaving. Her fingers itched with the desire to reach out and touch that little patch of tiny dark hairs.

"You should eat, _bella_ ," he said, with such an earnest face.

She shrugged. "I won't suffer overmuch from a day or two. I am very practiced in fasting, you know."

He frowned again. "Yes, but in Ramadan, you break your fast every single day. I know _that_ , too." That brought a tinge of triumphalism in his dark eyes, and it irked her.

"This is no month of Ramadan." She didn't hide the anger in her voice. Didn't hold it back from tearing another hole in her soul with memories of joyful _iftars_ with her family. Saleh and Brahim stealing her cheesy _sambusak;_ her mother hopelessly insisting that everyone eat their dates first, her father continually asking for someone to pass the _ful_ until they all gave up and put the bowl in front of him. Oh, how that hurt to think about, under the icy shadow of where her father, brother and uncle were now.

"I know." Dario gently, politely, put his hand on her knee.

Rage welled up inside her along with his touch, stealing her breath and her last shreds of good sense. "You don't know, Dario! You don't have the slightest understanding! Maybe if it was your sister in there, you'd know!"

The moment the words emerged from her mouth, she wanted to snatch them back. But it was too late for that.

She watched Dario's jaw clench and his eyes flash, and then she couldn't bear to watch anymore. So she bolted for the deck.

Dario called after her, but she didn't listen or stop. 

An earlier spell of rain had dried now, and thankfully her feet didn't slip as she hurried up the last set of steps to reach the open air at last.

The moon was full and shining on the calm sea, and it should have been beautiful and peaceful and serene but she didn’t know how she would ever feel any of those things again.

Her heart raced in her ears, a louder rhythm than the shifting swells below. What had she said? Dario hadn't deserved that.

 _Astaghfirullah_. Forgive me, Allah. Now she was wishing harm to other people’s loved ones, just to make herself feel better?

She gripped the rail harder, and the barely-healed blisters on her hands from Philadelphia strained and stung hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. She deserved that. She deserved the biting chill of the wind over her thin dress.

What next? Telling Thomas what she thought about him, too?

She retrieve the crumpled scrap of canvas from her dress pocket. There was no need to unfold it. She remembered her terrible words well enough.

To blame Thomas, in any way, for anything that had happened was absurd. Maliciously facetious. A child's ignorant, pointless interpretation of fairness. 

The Archivist was to blame, of course. But sometimes the Archivist felt more like a looming figure from a nightmare than a fellow human. That twisted, corrupt monster who could pluck the innocent from safety with such ease. How vulnerable they were. How infinitesimal their actions felt.

Scholar Wolfe, who knew that threat so intimately, had tried to warn them all of exactly this. Several times. Khalila bitterly wanted to rewind time now, to remind her idealistic self that there was more at risk here than merely her own life. 

After, all, blaming herself was the easiest by far. She could have stayed safely in the Library and taken her rightfully-earned lifetime of prestige, and then her father, uncle and brother wouldn’t have been targeted and dragged from their homes by soldiers in front of their families.

Her mother, her cousins, her aunt who shared the house, too. Were they unharmed? What had they seen? What had they been told about their menfolk? About _her_? Their heretic daughter.

"You had such promise, little one," her cousin Rafa had said, patronisingly. "Such a bright, bright future." Before he was killed too.

He lay in a hurried grave, without ritual washing, without the proper prayers. Another stone of guilt to weigh her down. 

"And you've thrown it away, for what?" whispered his ghost in her ear.

Yes. For what? _Tota est scientia._ What was her one family, compared to the fate of the Library?

Oh, there was no light anywhere that she turned!

Some time later, footsteps coming up the stairs shook her from the morass of her thoughts. Maybe it would be a sailor. Maybe if she just stayed completely still, they wouldn’t even notice her.

No such luck.

Dario leaned on the rail next to her. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the horizon, dreading what he might say. The wind whipped up again. She braced herself against it and let the renewed chill sink its teeth into her. She was used to it, by now. She still deserved it.

Dario shivered. It was an exaggerated motion that made her sigh. 

“It’s cold out here,” he said.

She let that ridiculously obvious statement hang in the air between them. Her head was getting a little foggy, and she welcomed it. Maybe it would help her to stop picturing lurid torture scenes every time she blinked. 

His hand covered hers on the rail. She flinched away. The heat of it was almost painful. 

“ _Hostia puta_ , Khalila, you’re freezing!” He tried to rub her hand between both of his own, and she pulled it away. A blister tore and stuck to the rail, and she swallowed a cry and prayed he hadn’t noticed. 

“I’m fine.” 

“You’re not.” He came closer and tried to put his hands on her face and arms. She batted at them, then when that didn’t work she grabbed one little finger and bent it back until he yelped and let go. 

“Khalila, please. You’re far too cold.” 

“I …” She started to repeated the meaningless “I’m fine,” again, then thought he deserved a little more truth after her disgusting performance earlier. “I don’t care.” 

That made him stop and look at her. 

“I care,” he said, softly. 

“Well, you shouldn’t.”

He started to talk, but she held up her hand to stop him. He gasped and she realised too late that it was the hand that the blister had just ripped free from. It looked worse than it felt, she was sure. She pulled it behind her back even as he reached for it, and took a few steps away. Or tried to, anyway, her stiff, cold legs buckled underneath her. 

She was so prepared for the thud of hitting the deck that being suddenly enfolded in Dario’s arms disoriented her. She couldn’t quite stop herself from mumbling some utter nonsense; thankfully in Arabic. 

"Stop hurting yourself!" His voice was very loud and echoey from where her ear was pressed against his chest. She tried without much heart to free herself. She didn't want to hurt him again.

"I'm sorry." She shivered in his embrace. He was so warm that it hurt.

"It's fine." He stroked her cheek, his hand like a brand on her flesh.

She turned away, and shakily regained her footing independent of his comfort. "It's not! I told you ..." She trailed off, unwilling to repeat her words.

He nodded solemnly. "You told me you wished my sister was imprisoned too. And I’m sure your brilliant mind is writhing with all the other painful, nasty, coldly logical thoughts that you’re not sharing with me. With anyone.” 

That stunned her sluggish mind into panicked immobility. Could he have seen her terrible little journal note about Thomas?

He closed the gap between them and gently pulled her head to rest against his shoulder. “It is not your fault.” His voice vibrated in his chest again. “Khalila, my love, my soul, we will find your family and save them, and save everything. I know we will, because we must.” 

Why was his voice bright with hope while she felt only bitterness and despair? When had they swapped philosophical positions? 

Answer: when they had _taken her family_. 

“I don’t believe you,” she whispered. 

He kissed the top of her head, a slow, firm press of his lips. “I know. But you will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Bits of this have sat in my files for well over a year, and this iteration of it sat in my drafts for almost the full month. (Literally. It would have been deleted tomorrow.)
> 
> I hope you liked reading it. Please give a kudos!


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